Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Love and Rage

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Proto::► 10:50, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Love and Rage

Love and Rage (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) - (View log)

Trivial anarchist organization which by its own article never had more than 150 members which apparently got little media attention, if any. No sources; no way to verify. Not notable. Wehwalt 10:08, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Keep. Disagree with deletion rationale. The legacy of Love and Rage continues to this day in the North American anarchist community (which is admittedly small but notable given their large participation and leadership in nearly every significant activist cause in the US). The various splinter groups formed NEFAC (and also went to revitalize the IWW) and the other side went on (among other things) to form the Phoenix Anarchist Coalition (part of the Southwest Anarchist Convergence). The history is documented and can be referenced. --Bk0 (Talk) 14:02, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment Then document and reference. We're all working to improve WP here. If the article can be improved, go right ahead. I have no personal stake in the outcome and would be delighted to see it improved.--Wehwalt 19:00, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletions. --   ⇒ bsnowball  11:10, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete unless independent references provided Article appears to be largely unreferenced with no citations to demonstrate the organization has been discussed in independent notable publications. Delete unless references provided to establish external notability. Dugwiki 20:28, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep A Google search for "Love and Rage" AND anarchist provides 31,200 results. This alone establishes notability and perhaps verifiability. I agree that the article needs better citation, but that alone is not significant grounds for deletion. I would like to remove the Template:Prod tag from the article, as per the Wikipedia:Proposed deletion section Contesting a Proposed Deletion. Is there any objection? Aelffin 04:15, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete, Google does not show notability or lack thereof. Reliable non-trivial secondary source mentions do. None are cited. Seraphimblade 12:10, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment As nothing is noted on Wikipedia: Reliable sources about the 'non-triviality' of sources, I would suggest that whether the citations are 'trivial' are a matter of judgement and have no bearing on the reliability of the source. Also note that WP:Reliable Sources is a guideline, not an official policy. Please read Wikipedia:Notability section Notability is not subjective and please also read Wikipedia:Articles for deletion section Before nominating an AfD.

Though each of the claims of the article aren't cited individually, many of the claims are to be found in the citations that were listed (as well as the new ones I recently added). I agree that the claims should all be individually cited, but the unverifiability of certain claims only calls into question those particular claims, not the existence of the group itself, nor the notability of the group vis-à-vis its activities on a national level, both which are adequately established in the articles cited.

Though the articles cited may not be ideal, they can be considered reliable non-scholarly sources according to the criteria in Wikipedia:Reliable sources for the following reasons:

• Attributable - All four articles are signed.
• Expertise - By virtue of being a regular contributor to a professional magazine on the subject, the author of the Northeast Anarchist article can be considered an expert working in the field of anarchist studies. AK Press, a well-known international publishing house, may also be considered to have expertise in the subject by virtue of its long history of publications, both scholarly and popular.
• Persistence - The four citations have persisted for 6, 5, 7, and 9 years, respectively. These links are not likely to go anywhere.
• Corroboration - These articles make claims that are corroborated by about 31,000 references on the internet.

The article fails to meet any of the criteria on Wikipedia:Deletion policy in the table Problem articles where deletion may be needed. On the contrary, the single issue mentioned as possible grounds for its deletion is 'verifiability', which is in the table under Problem articles where deletion may not be needed. Aelffin 20:43, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep per Aelffin's excellent analysis.Edivorce 03:22, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Anarchist activism and organizations are, by nature and intent, less documented by mainstream sources. Love & Rage was small compared to the community, but clearly one of the most important legacies of the late-80s, early-90s. If the anarchist movement is notable enough for WP as it would seem obviously to be, then one of the major developments within the movement over a decade is worth keeping. Come on now. Go delete some Pokemon characters. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by William Gillis (talk • contribs) 04:32, 28 January 2007 (UTC).
• Comment Another reason to leave the article intact until further improvements can be made is that there are fourteen articles that link to this one (more, if you include user pages). Also, the suggested merge of Revolutionary Anarchist Bowling League into this article would provide more context, and consolidating the references list would solidify the notability a bit more. As far as I can tell, all of the information in the article is accounted for in the citations, so besides merging the articles, all that would need to be done is to link up the relevant claims to their sources. Pretty straightforward, but a bit time consuming. If I get a chance, I'll haul my ass on down to the library and find some prettier sources. In the meantime, there's no reason to delete a useful, widely-cited article just because it needs some tidying up. Aelffin 15:15, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] REMOVING AfD

• The consensus appears to be Keep: 4 votes, Delete: 2 votes. This article has been debated for six days, so per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion, I recommend the deletion notice be removed. Any objections? Aelffin 06:04, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes, I object. Sometimes debates are deliberately left run longer in order to reach a larger consensus. In any case, however, only the closer should remove the AfD notice. Seraphimblade 06:15, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
    • I have no problem with leaving the debate open, just trying to follow the rules... Articles listed here are debated for up to five days, after which the deletion process proceeds based on Wikipedia community consensus. So, who is the closer? Aelffin 06:12, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
      • An admin will close it. Any admin that hasn't participated in the debate can come along to close it, but AfD's a bit backlogged right now, so it might take a bit. Sometimes non-admins will close a "keep" result as well, but no one that's participated in the debate can decide its outcome, for obvious reasons. Seraphimblade 06:16, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
        • I see. Thanks. Aelffin 11:18, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment What is the basis for the large stigmatizing tag on the top of the page? No one has even provided notice to legitimately interested editors. No one claimed this was an election. If you have a reason for place it there please explain. Any claim of "single purpose accounts" is also baseless. Every participant of this discussion, on both sides, has hundreds of edits on dozen (or more) topics. No account is new. No one is an annon IP. The tag only serves to chill speech.

Edivorce 00:14, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment I added it, as I have seen done in similar cases. And yes, if you look at the discussion upthread, there seemed to be some thought it was an election, and a little canvassing has been done, in this or related articles. But anyway, I think you all are treating this too confrontationally. I have no vested interest in the outcome of this debate. I saw articles that seemed to my eyes to meet the standard, and I acted to bring the community in on it. I trust everyone participating is similarly disinterested.--Wehwalt 00:37, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment It's not so much that I have a problem with this particular article being nominated for AfD... Other articles I've contributed to have gotten deleted without a peep from me, because I feel there were proper attempts to suggest improvements on the article before it was deleted. As I pointed out above, there are steps one is expected to take before nominating an AfD. But I'm an inclusionist, so that's my bias. Oh, and the accusation of canvassing is a bit of a stretch. If you'll read WP:Canvassing, you'll see that Edivorce's actions passed all three tests: it was a limited cross-posting, the message was neutral, and it was bipartisan. With the exception of my admitted confusion about the five-day rule, I'd say those who argue for keeping have been pretty much by-the-book. I certainly have tried to back up my arguments with the proper WikiPolicies. Aelffin 01:56, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
• Wehwalt, I don't question your good faith. Didn't mean to bruise. I just want to give pause before the work of other editors is destroyed. I think this is a serious step to take. The article isn't trivial and deserves full and complete fair process.Edivorce 02:15, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

It is getting it. And then some, due to the delay in resolving AfD discussions. But please, Aelffin, do not say that I didn't follow the procedure, when the only external sign of whether I followed a procedure is whether I chose to place a prod on the article. As it happens, I did touch second base before nominating. Since my thought was, and is, that this is not a notable organization, improving the article would not help. It remains a small, defunct group, and though you have said that it has had influences on other groups, this is not clear. The sources relied upon have real problems with WP:RS. At this time, I don't know if there is more to say, let's let the administrators do their work.--Wehwalt 02:24, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Wehwalt, I am certain that you are acting in good faith, but when the only indication of your attempt to improve the article is slapping it with a deletion nomination, I feel that you are walking the line between not following procedure and merely being very heavy-handed. You asserted and continue to assert that the the sources are problematic without making a case as to why they are problematic. Please don't think I am singling you out. I think it's a common problem among editors, and I have argued this point elsewhere on articles I had nothing to do with. It just seems trigger-happy. Aelffin 03:02, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.